You are here

FY 2018 Deficit Was $779 Billion

The Treasury Department today released a report showing the official fiscal year 2018 deficit was $779 billion, an increase of $113 billion, or 17 percent, from last year.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

Deficits are rising – and fast. In as soon as a year, they will top $1 trillion and never come back down unless Congress acts.

This year’s deficit amounts to $6,200 per household and is more than we spend each year on Medicare or defense. Interest on the debt rose by $62 billion over the previous year to $325 billion, which amounts to twice as much as we spend on the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security combined. Under current projections, annual interest payments on the debt could top $1 trillion by 2030.

As expected, recent tax cuts and spending increases – all put on the national credit card – are making a bad problem even worse.

It’s an unsustainable fiscal course that will lead us to debt overtaking the size of the entire economy in as soon as a decade, and not long after topping all-time highs as a share of the economy not seen since World War II.

Those elected to Congress this year will face stark and difficult choices to put the debt on a downward path and protect our nation’s social programs from insolvency. It’s no longer a problem for the future.

###

For more information contact Patrick Newton, press secretary, at newton@crfb.org.